Fantastic Four: The Master of Doom [Hardcover]

What the $@*% happened? Was it deadlines? A growing lack of interest? Millar painting himself into a corner? Was it Joe Quesada? It's Joe Quesada, isn't it? Whatever it is, what started as an awesome Fantastic Four run by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch ends up fizzling. FANTASTIC FOUR: THE MASTER OF DOOM collects issues #562-569, and the thing of it is that, even in this collection, there's a sense of epic, sweeping stuff unfolding and Millar and Hitch were well on their way to gloriously pulling the whole thing off. Until the wheels came off.

Rampant SPOILERS now.

This one starts promisingly, with Sue Richards speaking at her own funeral service, or rather that of a future version of herself. We're treated to a gallery of Marvel's superherodom who shows up to pay respect, and there's even a nice brief moment shared between Wolverine and future Wolverine. Millar takes this time to close off the whole Nu-World thread, as the New Defenders take off for their new home and Johnny Storm and his felonious one night stand say goodbye on good terms.

The overarching storyline surfaces once we learn that Victor Von Doom is incarcerated for murdering the Invisible Woman from the future. I don't really remember Dr. Doom getting captured in the past issue, but here he is in the hoosegow. And it might be hard to believe at first that Reed Richards would speak on Doom's behalf, but then again this is the same dude who once defended Galactus when the Devourer of Worlds was tried in an intergalactic tribunal. Doom, possibly the most imperious supervillain ever, naturally regards Reed's altruism as a sign of weakness, and he taunts him. And then he mentions his master: "The man who taught me everything I know. The first supervillain, if you will." "Nine weeks, my dear Richards," he crows, and then "I wonder if that wife of yours can die twice, eh?" Them's fighting words, and it sets up what bodes to be a hellacious farewell story arc for Mark Millar.

Before that, though, we get further developments on Ben's relationship with his schoolteacher girlfriend. And then Marvel's First Family goes Christmas holidaying with Reed's relatives in a tiny Scottish town that is so quaint that it couldn't, couldn't possibly harbor an unspeakably evil secret. Right? But there's a reason the first half of this two-parter is titled "The Christmas Monster."

And then finally we get to the main event, "Doom's Master." In the prior issues, Millar had been steadily building up the featured Big Bad's street creds. We learn that Doom's Master, who is actually called the Marquis of Death, is an off-the-scales heavy hitter and he is one sadistic mother. His sick pastime seems to be gallivanting throughout the Multiverse and wiping out worlds inhabited by the FF. After twenty years of distance, the Marquis of Death at last reaches out to his erstwhile apprentice Dr. Doom. He arrives at the 616 universe. I was all anticipate-y.

I haven't re-read the story arc so I can't quite pinpoint when doubts started gnawing in. I had to sit down and think about it, but there are a couple of things that seemed off. In introducing new lead supervillains, there's a tendency for writers to have their new favorites kicking the taco out of an already established Big Bad or some other heavy-hitter in order to establish the newbie's badasssery. And I guess it's fine as a means to establish credibility and to advance the plot, providing it's not abused. Millar went this route in the Nu-Earth storyline with Galactus, and now we assume (because it's not shown on page) that the Marquis has managed to kill off a Watcher. And then the transparency becomes even clearer when Millar goes to the well a third time as the Marquis has his reunion of sorts with Dr. Doom. The Latverian monarch gets humbled, and it's shocking how easily the Marquis accomplishes this.

I'm also a bit staggered that Doom, who even while napping oozes entitlement and sheer arrogance, could ever find it in himself to bow down to any other person. It's hard to buy. But I guess he had to learn his craft from someone, so whatever. Going back to the Marquis of Death, I wish Millar had defined the parameters of his abilities more clearly. The Marquis's powers seem to have no boundaries, no weaknesses to the guy. Meaning that it'd be tricky work for Reed to come up with something to beat him, something that would make sense to us, anyway, and also fit within the story's internal logic. I halfway expected for him to just come up with some new invention called the De-Marquisizer. As it is, Millar does resort to an out-of-left-field deux ex machina device. I thought it was weak.

When I first learned that Millar & Hitch were taking over this series, I got all giddy and also possibly almost had the vapors. But in retrospect - because, if nothing else, a run of merely 16 issues isn't nearly long enough - this team was gonna be hard pressed to live up to what Stan Lee & Jack Kirby and also John Byrne brought to the table. Millar and Hitch started off with a bang, and I relished the hell out of Fantastic Four: World's Greatest, Vol. 1. And I enjoyed most of the stuff in this one, as well. But I think "Doom's Master" is a case of Millar coming at an ambitious storyline, but then just being unable to put that perfect ribbon on it. His climactic issue (#569) is a disjointed mess, and not really the way you wanna go out. I'll give away several SPOILERs here and say that legions of Fantastic Fours from other timelines try to take out the FF of the 616 universe (which is where Marvel's mainstream continuity takes place). And I'm sorry but having all these doppelgangers around just serves to cheapen things. The Marquis tries to seduce the 616 Reed with an offer to save his world if only he'd commit certain acts of murder, and apparently out of all the vast uncountable realities, only our 616 Reed Richards ended up rejecting the Marquis. The other Reed Richards resent the hell out of him for this.

But nothing gets more incoherent than that exasperating two-paged spread in issue #569 as two reality-bending minds duel it up and wild, non-sequitur images spew across our eyeballs. Or if that two-paged spread made sense to anyone, then they're bigger comic book nerds than me. For me, the last straw was the Captain America dinosaur on the upper right-hand corner. What the $@*% was that?

Late in the game, there's a lack of flow to the storytelling, and maybe it's because Joe Ahearne handles script duties for the last two issues, working off Millar's plot. There are also moments when the art isn't as tight as usual, and maybe that's because fellow artists Neil Edwards (for issue #568) and Stuart Immonen (#569) lend Hitch a hand and it's not a perfect mesh.

16 issues, most of them very cool. Overall, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch did themselves proud, even if there's that stumble at the end. Millar gave us the Nu-World and the futuristic Invisible Woman (good), as well as the New Defenders and the Thing's romance (blah). He also gave us a Reed Richards who is dashing and cuts a romantic figure. Mostly, Millar made cosmic adventuring fun again and returned the FF title to its rightful epic status. But, probably, my favorite thing that he came up with is in revealing that Reed's young daughter Valeria flaunts a genius-level intellect on par with her dad's and that she'd been hiding her smarts from her family all along, partly so as not to discomfit her older brother Franklin. When broken down to its essence, the FF is still about family, never mind that it's getting harder and harder to come up with new family dynamics. I savor Reed's enthusiastic affection for Valeria. And I got a good smile (but also a sad tug at the heartstrings) when young Franklin peruses his Christmas wish list: 1) Super-powers like the rest of the family, and 2) Nintendo DS. But, no worries, even powerless Franklin Richards gets a chance to shine (issue #565).

3.5 stars out of 5 for this one. I mostly sort of enjoyed it.

Mark Millar is great at writing fun, big idea plots but tends to have very weak endings. This is NOT one of those weak endings. Doom's mentor comes to Earth to kill everyone, starting with the Fantastic Four. Its a high tension conflict and has some good twists. Millar's work on FF is not ground breaking but is entertaining fast paced and high stakes.

My only problem with it is the art. Most people love Brian Hitch, not me. You get a great deal of detail but terrible faces and lots of tight lines. Not a bad artist but far from my favorite.

Storyline is fantastic from Millar. He's a great writer, and the artwork is good as well. I loved vol. 1 of this series, but this one was not quite as good. Enjoyable, good read for a weekend afternoon!

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